F1 championship leader Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) has no circuits to fear over the rest of the Y 2017 season after challenging Mercedes in the Belgian Grand Prix.

MercedesAMG’s Toto Wolff tried to play down his Team’s being tagged as the favorite in the build-up to last weekend’s race, the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps circuit was expected to suit the W08 in similar fashion to Silverstone, where MercedesAMG dominated.

Lewis Hamilton won from the Pole position at Spa to cut Mr. Vettel’s advantage to 7 points in the championship race, but Mr. Vettel beat the other MercedesAMG of Valtteri Bottas to 2nd on the grid and ran within a couple of secs of Mr. Hamilton for the entire race.

But, Mr. Vettel could not make the most of his Key opportunity to attack Mr. Hamilton, after the safety car in 2-H of the race, but said “the positive thing is that we had very good race pace”.

“Overall the car was very good,” he added.

“We did not change too much compared to Silverstone, which shows on the one hand that Silverstone was just a bad weekend, but we improved also the car, especially in race pace.

“We were, on average, a second off, or nearly a second off in Silverstone, so it’s a big step.

“I’m very, very happy.

“We are on the right track and I don’t think we have a circuit we should fear, going from now.”

Mr. Vettel ran on ultra-soft tires to Hamilton’s softs for the 8-lap sprint the safety car set up, but Mr. Hamilton held on at the restart and then ran clear over the remainder of the race.

“It’s normal, as a racer you always look at what you could have done better,” said Mr. Vettel.

“But you also need to appreciate the fact that it was a very, very good weekend for us, all the way.

“Both cars very quick, competitive and closer than I think one could expect before the race.”

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had performed strongly through all 3 FP sessions, but was hampered by “vibrations” in qualifying that left him 4th on the grid.

Raikkonen had to serve a 10-sec stop-go penalty in the race for failing to slow under Yellow flags, but still finished 4th.

He admitted “it feels like we’re not up there in the straight line” against Mercedes, but agreed with Mr. Vettel that Ferrari’s performance at Spa boded well.

“We have to do what we feel is the fastest for us,” said Mr. Raikkonen.

“We’re also trying to improve in more areas, not just the engine, it’s a combination of things to go fastest.

“I think people expected that it would easily be a Mercedes circuit but it wasn’t so easy for them, so we’re doing the right things.”

Paul Ebeling

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